joemoralez

[joemoralez]

If we are all a figment of our own imaginations, what compels us in life to become exclusive believers of various human created concepts? If the science is true, everything we see, feel and touch is a vibrating molecule, including ourselves. Our consciousness is a no-holds-bar experiencer chasing acceptance, love and whatever else expands our realities, eventually crafting our avatars into whatever we desire. If we are experiencers running freely through the "goo" as if an open field, why do we pass so many others who are locked in their own cages? Do concepts determine how tall the walls of a maze or how thick the bars of a cage will become when ideologies are downloaded and become "exclusive" into our psyche? If we are a vibrating figment of our own imaginations, raise your hand if you're an expert cage builder and prisoner of your own reality? Now you can recognize how powerful this knowledge is for those who are creating nefarious cages to catch an aloof experiencer. There are many hunters among prey in a world of money which makes THIS current reality go round… until it doesn't. So, are we suppose to become hunters, prey or neither of those two exclusive things?

[joemoralez]

My newest @awakeorsleeping EP, Interstellar Hearts, is available on iTunes! I think you’ll dig it! :) | elftree.co/InterstellarHearts

If you have the time, give it a review!  Thanks so much for your support!

[joemoralez]

"Generally speaking, three months after V-E Day and even longer after the Liberation of individual groups, many Jewish displaced persons and other possibly non-repatriables are living under guard behind barbed-wire fences, in camps of several descriptions (built by the Germans for slave-laborers and Jews), including some of the most notorious of the concentration camps, amidst crowded, frequently unsanitary and generally grim conditions, in complete idleness, with no opportunity, except surreptitiously, to communicate with the outside world, waiting, hoping for some word of encouragement and action in their behalf."

-Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?: An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky

[joemoralez]

With an open mind I can hear the truth.

[joemoralez]

Cakes For You is a drawing I did for the inside of a birthday card. Hope you like it!

[joemoralez]

Lots of work being done in the ol' ElfTree! New podcast shows coming soon!  EnterTheElfTree.com 

Joe.

[joemoralez]

Not high enough. Keep going. :)

[joemoralez]

When a flower is small waiting to be tall Give it some water and sing When a flower looks down with sad little frown Remind it of the Spring

...

Don't judge yourself or others before spring, you may find the winter months couldn't freeze everything. You are and always will be a flower growing toward an unattainable sun, so do your best to #love on everyone.

[joemoralez]

"TUSK" Q&A - Words of Wisdom from Kevin Smith | #walrusyes

In a 12 minute long answer to Ian’s question after a screening of “Tusk” we learn what it meant to make a movie based on a podcast.

http://www.entertheelftree.com

https://twitter.com/elf_tree

http://www.soundcloud.com/elftree-podcast-network

[joemoralez]

We are ALL standing at the fork in the road. Truth is far beyond what anyone is prepared to handle.  Take tiny gulps and conquer things one truth at a time or you may become overwhelmed. Never give your soul away. Never.

[joemoralez]

In April of 1958, a 22 year-old Hunter S. Thompson wrote a letter on the meaning of life when asked by a friend for advice. What makes his response all the more profound is the fact that at the time, the world had no idea that he would become one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Therefore his beliefs about purpose were hypothetical—they were statements of faith.

But if it’s true that our beliefs really do become our reality, then there’s no better example of a life fully realised than the one of Hunter S. Thompson. Let his perspective inspire you:

…

April 22, 1958

57 Perry Street

New York City

Dear Hume,

You ask advice: ah, what a very human and very dangerous thing to do! For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal — to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.

I am not a fool, but I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles … ” (Shakespeare)

And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

But why not float if you have no goal? That is another question. It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainty. So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. How can a man be sure he’s not after the “big rock candy mountain,” the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance?

The answer — and, in a sense, the tragedy of life — is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?

The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on “the meaning of man” and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term “god only knows” purely as an expression.) There’s very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I’m the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs.

I’m going to steer clear of the word “existentialism,” but you might keep it in mind as a key of sorts. You might also try something called “Being and Nothingness” by Jean-Paul Sartre, and another little thing called “Existentialism: From Dostoyevsky to Sartre.” These are merely suggestions. If you’re genuinely satisfied with what you are and what you’re doing, then give those books a wide berth. (Let sleeping dogs lie.) But back to the answer. As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors — but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires — including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.

As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.

Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN — and here is the essence of all I’ve said — you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.

Naturally, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ve lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than a horizontal existence. So it isn’t any too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do. But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. But you say, “I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.”

And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know — is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.

If I don’t call this to a halt, I’m going to find myself writing a book. I hope it’s not as confusing as it looks at first glance. Keep in mind, of course, that this is MY WAY of looking at things. I happen to think that it’s pretty generally applicable, but you may not. Each of us has to create our own credo — this merely happens to be mine.

If any part of it doesn’t seem to make sense, by all means call it to my attention. I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.

And that’s it for now. Until I hear from you again, I remain,

your friend,

Hunter

[joemoralez]

"Under the spell of modern science we've all been taught that anything declared by reason as "real" or "unreal" is a universal certainty that we cannot question.  

This paradigm of scientific certainty -- as it manifests in philosophy, politics, ethics, religion and physics -- brings us not closer to truth, but further away from our understanding of an ever-evasive, ever-expansive universe replete with paradoxes far and beyond human comprehension ... a universe that has existed long before us and will continue to exist long after we are gone.  But where man should feel humility he often postures in hubris."

-Stephanie Krasnow/Adbusters

[joemoralez]

We have an amazing ability to overcome the odds. The odds are percentages based on weaker thoughts. Look beyond everything you've been fed so you can find truth.

[joemoralez]

Today, I said goodbye to the first Mac I ever bought back in 2001. I've drug this little guy around for 13 years... Weird. This iMac, although long forgotten by the masses, will always hold a dear place in my heart. It took many talented people to create it. This computer inspired me in ways which eventually led me to my MacBook Pro. THAT machine has changed my life in ways I could never explain. If you're an owner of Apple products, I'm sure you feel me on that one in your own personal way.  Very grateful and halfway disturbed of the connection I've made to these pieces of technology.  So, today I said goodbye to my first Apple inspiration.  Thank you, iMac G4, like your creator, Mr. Jobs, nothing will ever be quite the same.  When a star disappears there is hardly a contender to take its exact place.  Eventually, a new one will flicker in the night sky over yonder and twinkle a youthful glow and everyone will stop for a brief moment in time to ponder it's beauty.  Goodnight.

[joemoralez]

I love sleeping in zero gravity.

Photo captured by the amazingly talented Hoyoung Lee at SOHOSTORY. Check him out!  I will have more on my website soon!

[joemoralez]

Who are we?

[joemoralez]